Stepping into Ashmolean’s rooftop restaurant, you feel immediately refreshed. Before you stands an open, high-ceilinged space, airy and sleek with white marble. A wall of glass doors separates the in and outdoor areas. The view looks out onto the Randolph Hotel across the street, which sounds off-puttingly commercial, but because it’s a glamorous, vast stone building, in reality, it feels rather fitting. It also creates a sense of elevated privacy, which, along with the polite and thoughtful menu, and accompanying service, create the perfect backdrop to conversation. There’s an expectation of quality and flair, but no acquired tastes here.

Some restaurants, (exclusively expensive ones,) pride themselves on being just a little bit difficult. You’re not to visit them as simply the scenery for your latest catch-up, you must go to experience the restaurant itself. Ashmolean has wisely dodged this philosophy, likely recognizing that the sheer range of clientele their restaurant will serve means they need to be as broadly appealing as possible. This is a tall order. The museum attracts tourists, local members, curious students, retirees, and mum and baby groups alike. Some will book a rooftop dinner for a special occasion, and others will simply realise they are starving nearing the end of their tour and simply give it a whirl.

I was here with my colleague to sample the new Grecian-themed menu items, inspired by the museum’s major new exhibition Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth and Reality, which is on until June 30th (you can read our review of Labyrinth here).

We started our lunch with glasses of Belstar Prosecco (£7.50 for a standard 125ml flute) which tasted as subtle and starry as prosecco should.

I then ordered the Lamb Koftas (£8.50) and my colleague the Spinach and Feta Muffin (£7.50) from the Starters menu and split the Sharing Board (£9.50) from the nibbles. The sharing board consisted of two sliced pitta breads, taramasalata, and roasted red pepper hummus. The dips were piped into two aesthetic little mounds on either side of the wooden serving board, and studded with pine nuts and microgreens. The combination of the two flavours was inspired - the stable, warm taste and ever so slightly gritty texture of the hummus balanced out the unctuous richness and sharp aftertaste of the taramasalata.

The lamb koftas came garnished with a wedge of little gem lettuce, quartered vertically to form an ombre green spear, two grilled pitta wedges, and a generous dollop of raita. The pair of koftas were perfectly seasoned if ever-so-slightly dry in this instance. The raita, a cooling mix of yoghurt, dill and cucumber, tasted as fresh as a spring morning. Although I was slightly bewildered by the textural choice to slice the cucumber into long, skinny threads, it was not enough to sully the dish. The same slicing technique was used for the cucumber salad accompanying my colleague’s spinach and feta muffin. A sort of coy, bitty take on the Greek salad, this featured gutted tomato slices, crumbled feta, and approximately one and a half black olives sliced into fine slivers, all scattered atop the bed of aforementioned cucumber reeds. I’m making it sound stingy - it wasn’t. It was simply in proportion to the rest of the starter, the muffin, which was apparently excellent - a souffle texture and a balance of the feta’s chalkiness and spinach's easygoing flavour - something light yet satisfying. Between the drinks and sharing platter and dessert, I will say my colleague and I enjoyed a substantial lunch, but do not go thinking a starter alone will sate any appetites. Luckily, the range of mains is quite good, with vegan and veggie options, fish, chicken, and a classed-up beef burger.

Turning our attention back to the specifically Knossos-themed items: there’s a smooth, friendly feel to these choices, which extends to the accompanying themed cocktail - the fresh-tasting, easy-drinking Labyrinth Highball (£8). Like the lovechild of a Moscow Mule and a G&T, this uses the Greek liqueur Mastika and ginger ale among other ingredients and is garnished with both orange and cucumber. We knocked these back with the food, then enjoyed a cappuccino (£3.50, well made and unremarkable) and an impulse indulgence from the dessert menu, which turned out to be the star of the show: The Elderflower Pannacotta (£7.50). Panna Cotta, a cream-based jello dessert, is a strange beast because it seems demure but can so quickly become sickly. Here, the flavours of lemon balm and elderflower elevate the tone, in the same way, goat’s cheese marries well with fruit preserves. This is further heightened by the balsamic strawberries and sprinkles of microgreens: taken all together, they form a dazzlingly expressive flavour and textural experience.

It’s worth noting as well, the service was truly exceptional, and attentive but not cloying - bringing us more bread, and topping up our water. Donning black turtlenecks and jeans, the almost cartoonishly chic staff felt both friendly and knowledgeable.

Ultimately, the restaurant provided a lovely afternoon of escapism, the perfect cocktail of style and subtlety, and I look forward to returning again soon.

Warm, welcoming, and modern in a reassuringly old-fashioned way, the Ashmolean Rooftop Restaurant is clean-lined and shiny, made unexpectedly cosy with dimmed lighting; imposing in terms of location and décor, but accommodating and accessible in its food and service. If you’re going to eat above a world-famous museum in the centre of Britain’s least affordable city, you might as well resign yourself to the cost - but that’s not such a bad thing, because, as the menu proudly states, ‘every purchase from the Ashmolean Rooftop Restaurant supports the museum’.

It’s a nice spot to take the chill off on a windy winter’s night, to a background of a jazz duo playing a well-judged mix of standards and pop, and we were very well cared for by the efficient staff. Our server may have been new to the job, as she seemed a little uncertain, but she never put a plate wrong. The food was well-presented, generous and delicious, but what the menu offers is perhaps more high-class comfort food than fine dining, which some might feel doesn’t justify the price tag. What is worth the cost, however, is the ambience, the sense of occasion, and the pleasing awareness of eating in a palace of culture. It was too cold and dark for us to make any use of the balcony but there was a nice sense of being in a rooftop restaurant nonetheless, with an expanse of glass overlooking on one side the eaves of the Randolph Hotel in shadow, and on the other the bright open stairwell of the museum.

We started with hot smoked trout with watercress, fennel, dill, horseradish cream – and a plate of Cornish crab, smooth avocado and gremolata on toasted sourdough crostini. There was a bit of a scrap over who would get to have the crab dish and I lost, but both starters were solid performers and a good, light, well-flavoured beginning to the meal. The main courses were both really well done. My pork chop with butterbeans topped with a piquant salsa verde, perfectly accompanied by a last-minute order of fries we didn’t really need (gracefully and very speedily added without fuss), was just gorgeous. A sweet, satisfying combination of pork and pulses which was simultaneously indulgent and nutritious, beautifully matched with unnecessary chips to soak up the rich sauce. Katy said that her cod saltimbocca was nicest piece of fish she’d ever had – very lightly cooked and so still perfectly tender, wrapped in wonderfully salty prosciutto and pepped-up with Catalan romesco sauce.

Ordering sticky toffee pudding may have been a step too far. In a high-end restaurant a dessert like this needs to tread a very fine line, and should ideally be rich but not heavy. This, although described by the waitress as ‘not too large’ was a proper doorstep of a pudding, firm, generous and extremely sweet. It was great, but made an already sumptuous meal positively hearty. The rhubarb syllabub with pistachio shortbread was a better choice, a lovely moreish mix of sweet and sharp that wasn’t overpowering.

To accompany this feast we splashed out on a Tinpot Hut Sauvignon Blanc at £32.50 (wine starts at around £20 a bottle), which brought the final bill for a meal for two firmly over £100. It’s worth it, if you know what to expect and what you’re paying for, and we’ll definitely be returning – possibly after a long hike or day’s sightseeing to help us do justice to the sticky toffee pudding.